2011.  For decades American corporations have been paying their lower level employees too little to live on, or to afford health care, or to save for retirement. Government has had to make up the difference. Now federal, state and local governments are broke while the corporations sit on mountains of cash. Everyone blames the government. No one blames the corporations.

        The following quotes are arranged according to the definitions of addiction in the Glossary. Within each category they are in chronological order. They constitute, if you will, a body of independent evidence. (See also Wealth & Power Quotations.)

        Webster's Dictionary defines dependency as, " a land or territory distinct from the country governing it, but belonging to it and subject to its laws." We offer here, the idea of a codependency , a national enlargement of the codependent household, retaining its synergetic dysfunction and subject to a central addiction cluster's laws.

        Daily life in a codependent government is a chronic standoff between two sides. On one side is a cluster of wealth & power CAPs. On the other, a codependent general public compulsively in debt after generations of inflation. Governments are constantly pulled between the two, and most often do little more than create the jobs not created by the wealthy and powerful. Most industrial-world governments are huge employers.

        Washington and Hamilton and their fellow drafters of the U.S. Constitution used the phrase: "in order to form a more perfect union". They must have considered it very important as it appears in the Constitution's first sentence. What sort of government would be more perfect than the hard-won democracy already in place?

        Washington & Hamilton were part of a wealth & power co-addiction cluster that was having trouble controlling the democratic government. The Continental Congress with its purely procedural presidency was not as easily swayed as it would be with a wealth & power presidency embodied in one individual. Of course, that individual would be the Complex's leader George Washington.

        Neither Washington nor Hamilton took part in the preparation and signing of the Declaration of Independence. They were not likely to have anything to do with a document that declared that power belonged not to the monarch but to the many. In addition, the Declaration is mostly an indictment of the King of England for abuse of power.

        The two were the leaders of a wealth & power co-addiction cluster known as the Order of the Cincinnati. It is this cluster that wrote the Constitution in secret sessions. It provided for a President—"His Highness, Protector of the People's Liberties"—to have complete veto power over the Congress, and complete control of the military. Claimed Hamilton, "Representation alone will not do; demagogues will generally prevail; and, if separated, they will need a mutual check. This check is a monarch (1787)."

        The Continental Congress, in its insistence on the distribution of power among three branches of government, was creating an treatment strategy for compulsive power. The existing American democracy was specifically structured to diffuse power among many individuals. Its presidency was a rotating position created only for legislative efficiency.

        The following cases illustrate other types of political treatment strategies.

[1493. Columbus, not long after he was appointed Governor of the lands he "discovered." But eventually he had to be removed by his own government. Apparently his addiction to gold was severe. It seems he would punish any native Arawak who did not bring him enough gold each day. When he began to hang the Arawaks he was removed to Spain and put on trial. He was found guilty and jailed. It is possible his primary motive for the Atlantic voyage was his addiction. (See, Columbus, Gold and Discovery by Johnson & Mandell, Films for Humanities and Science; see also, "Christopher Columbus the Man" in News for You , 10/09/91; and Kingdoms of Gold, Kingdoms of Jade: The Americas before Columbus by Brian Fagan.)]

[1642. Ipswich, Massachusetts. Nathaniel Ward and his appointed legislative committee complete the Body of Liberties, perhaps the world's first declaration of the supremacy of individual rights over government. In it, government is expected to respect the rights of ordinary men and women, not just the Peers (nobility) as in the Magna Charta. Women are declared to have rights. Even animals are protected. The legislature of the Mass. Bay Colony secretly approves the document but as a compromise adds capital punishment for worshipping the wrong god. Nineteen copies are distributed to the towns but they all disappear.]

[Ipswich, Mass., Saturday, Aug. 23, 1687. Rev. John Wise and the parishioners of the First Church of Ipswich meet in defiance of an English government order prohibiting town meetings. They are protesting compulsive taxation policies and the outlawing of their religion. The good citizens are arrested but later fined and released. Never before have peaceful men and women openly defied a dictator. Three years later the English governor was overthrown by a farmer army and citizen revolt.]

The courage of the parishioners deserves a place in the American history books.

[Second Opinions. "True democracy is the renunciation of the struggle for power (Isocrastes, ca. 400 B.C.)"; There is nothing, absolutely nothing which needs to be more carefully guarded against than that one man should be allowed to become more powerful than the people (Demosthenes, 344 B.C."; "Power must never be trusted without a check (John Adams, 1816)"; "It was to guard against the encroachments of power, the insatiate ambition of wealth that this government was instituted, by the people themselves (William Leggett, 1834)"; "The rich tend to be ashamed of riches, but politicians are never ashamed of themselves, though they should be (Woodworth Wyatt, 1976)"; "Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty (Ronald Reagan, 1981)."]

        Compulsive acquisitors are unable to resist an unguarded stash and will risk life and limb to seize even a well-protected stash if it is big enough. Unfortunately, the addict with the well-protected stash will risk his own destruction to protect it.

        In America, compulsive spending for defense of stash 1950-1990 may prove disastrous. It certainly was for the Soviet Union which was brought down when it was simultaneously hit by a spreading worldwide economic depression. The extent of the harm to the industrial world has yet to be seen. Europe has some dependence on compulsive military spending by the U.S.

[Zany. Some military spending has included thousand-dollar hammers and soap dishes.]

        Compulsive nationalism is a synergetic result of compulsive loyalty. Many power addicts discover that nationalism and patriotism can be a mighty substance to abuse. There is also secrecy and denial "...for reasons of national security."

        Bureaucracies differ little from ASCOs. The following dynamics may be found in dysfunctional bureaucracies.

        1. Synergetic Transfer. Those to whom bureaucrats are codependent are often outside the system. The true CAPs are those from whom the spending money comes and from whom, therefore, power can be transferred. As they exercise their spending power more and more, bureaucrats soon forget that the money they spend is not their own.

        2. Splitting, a term from psychotherapy, is defined as setting others against each other. It is most often attempted by CAPs against their codependents. "Divide and conquer" is the CAP's rule of thumb. The reverse can also occur, as for example in CDHs where the children set their parents against each other for relief from abuse.

        3. Compulsive Avoidance of action and the resulting stasis increases as the size of the dysfunctional bureaucracy. In a healthy utopian bureaucracy, the synergetic effects would result in extreme efficiency due to the power of the bureaucracy. But how many employees and consumers of the present governmental bureaucracies of the industrial world decry "the System"? Usually their complaint is about inaction, although there are many cases of bureaucratic abused heaped on a individuals. (See I.R.S.: A World Unto Itself .)

["Bartleby the Scrivener." This short story by Herman Melville shows how much power there is in simply refusing to do anything at all. Bartleby stood where he was, refusing to move on, or to do anything else. After a while, he attracted quite a crowd, all unable to decide what to do with him.]

["LONDON—A stray cat who took up residence in the home of the Prime Minister, Mr. John Major, in Downing Street has been put on a strict diet because he was being over-pampered by officials. 'The staff are used to giving him treats and tidbits, like biscuits, so an order has gone up ordering them not to feed him,' a spokeswoman in the cabinet office said. Vets say the cat has a kidney disorder. He has been put on a diet of water and cat food. The cat has been named Humphrey (Reuter, Dec. 1, 1993)."]

[In 1776, Abigail Adams, wrote the following in a letter to her husband who was involved in the American Revolution. "I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power in the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could." "If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation (Sunday, March 31, 1776.)"]

        Women have been denied economic and political power for too long. On the other hand, in the past, women with great power have have acted no differently than men with great power. The important question is not whether men or women should have power, but how they can together in power create a utopia.

[Boston, 1630. Anne B. Hutchinson leads a women's discussion group and is run out of town. With the help of a native tribe in the area, the Naragansetts, she sets up a colony called Democracy" where all are free and equal. (Ironically, it became Newport, Rhode Island, a major symbol of wealth & power.)]

[Salem, Massachusetts, 1636. Rev. Roger Williams founds the first American-born church. He preaches that all are equal under God. He is put on trial by the loud-mouthed theologian Cotton Mather and is run out of town. The Naragansetts help Williams set up a colony, which he names "Providence," not far from Anne Hutchinson's colony.]

        Alcohol and tobacco industrialists have considerable influence in government judging by the amount of tax dollars they receive in the form of subsidies. Then there is the relaxation of health regulations they find not to their liking. In return, they provide the government with considerable tax revenue, and big campaign spending money for the elected representatives. On top of all this, the substances in which the industrialists deal have always been quite popular with government officials.

[Common Cause says, "...tobacco policy presents one of the clearest examples of how campaign contributions have distorted the political process to protect special interests rather than the public interest source."]

[Secret Cigarette Additives. Each year, American tobacco companies turn over to the Office on Smoking and Health a list of hundreds of secret ingredients in cigarettes. The officials, "...obligingly lock it in a safe, away from the prying eyes of consumers and health scientists (Myron Levin, The Nation , Dec. 23, 1991)." Levin went on to say the some of the ingredients are listed on American cigarettes sold in Europe where additives must be made public. Shellac, acetone, and turpentine are on the list along with a number of exotic chemicals.]

        But it is alcohol that has prevailed as the favorite drug of high officials. Smoke-filled political decisions are becoming a thing of the past.

[The Official Drug. Besides being a source of revenue and political influence, alcohol has chemical influence. Alcohol is dispensed at most official functions at which decisions and agreements are sometimes made. Certainly opinions are formed. Alcohol is also dispensed at a host of unofficial parties and other social events where some more decisions and agreements are made. In Washington, many agreements and decisions are made at the House Restaurant where some officials charge up huge bills. Then there are all of the surrounding restaurants, pubs, and other night spots. Musicians know that Washington is "Party City," second only to New Orleans in the number of gigs available.]

        Most citizens of the industrial world are taxed at about 50% when we take into account all local, state, federal, sales, property, and excise taxes, plus government fees for necessary services, and then all the hidden sales taxes.

[Tax Freedom Day. In America, this day marking the point in the year when most citizens have made enough of their annual salary to pay their taxes. It is usually occurs in mid June.]

[Laffer Curve. Economist Arthur Laffer finds that government revenue does not increase indefinitely with increase in taxes. There comes a point when the taxation is so high that people don't have enough money to spend. As a result, the governments receives less revenue from sales taxes and from the companies that make the goods not being sold. That point is about 50%.]

        As compulsive shoppers, governments are addicted to spending and the power such spending creates.

[Check & Balance. In the early 1990s, it was revealed that three fourths of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives had bounced more than 20,000 checks in the House Bank. Some had gone to great excess. It was also revealed that large bills remained unpaid at the House Restaurant, as much as $5,000 in a few cases. Similar problems surfaced at the White House Credit Union. Not surprisingly, the people who compulsively spend tax dollars compulsively spend their own money as well.]

        Typical of codependency, governments constantly seek to maintain equilibrium. They are constantly making up losses caused by the hoarding of money by the super rich. Most of the money goes to create the jobs the wealthy no longer create. Most industrial-world governments are huge employers.

[Tug of War. Those who make a living from interest-paying investments, e.g., the leisure class and the elderly, prefer high interest rates. At the other end are those who want to borrow money at low interest for houses or business, or to have credit cards. The banks act as CAPs, splitting one group against the other. They charge the latter high rates and pay the former low rates. Governments get into the game through the central banks who try to control the interest rates.]

[Drug War. It started in 1937 in the United States with the Harrison Act, a law declaring a number of chemicals illegal. This was just five years after alcohol was re-legalized. In some states, alcohol and cigarettes were still illegal at the time.]

        The Drug War has grown into a worldwide effort and has degenerated into fruitless interdiction of less than 10% of the drugs entering America. Predictably, the warriors assure the public, à la Viet Nam, that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that the war is being won but more funds are needed.

[Winning? The U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services report on statistics from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Appendixes 3,4) reveals the true picture of drug consumption in America. Illegal drug use has remained relatively stable but they present graphs showing dramatic declines. Closer examination reveals that the vertical scale of the graphs dramatize small changes. According to the report, the changes in 1991 (Appendix 4) were not statistically significant. Therefore they should be represented as level and not as falling.]

[Fried Eggs. Another strategy of the Drug War is the running of drug use prevention ads on TV. One shows eggs frying in a pan with the voiceover saying, "This is what drugs do to your brain." Dr. Gil Botvin, a well-known expert on the effectiveness of drug-treatment and prevention programs says, "scare tactics have never been demonstrated to be effective." The ads avoid talking about the super-killers cigarettes and alcohol. By focusing on the illegal drugs, the ads tacitly affirm alcohol and cigarettes. Said Dr. Botvin, "My concern is that they're skipping the most important ones in terms of fatality (The Nation , March 9, 1992, p. 302.)"]

        Why don't the ads go after the legal superkillers alcohol and tobacco? Perhaps it is because so many of us consume the substances , and our officials accept campaign contributions from the alcohol-tobacco cluster. The Drug Warriors "fight" similar clusters in other countries. The result is a codependent standoff, a stalemated Drug War.

[1992. In a Drug War case, the U.S. Supreme Court declares international kidnapping legal if it is for the purpose of bringing foreign drug dealers to trial in America. An angry Mexican government drops out of the war--for a while.]

        The Codependency spends huge amounts each year attempting to alleviate the side effects of all our addictions. The harm continues to grow while the spending increases. The situation has deteriorated to the point where it resembles a drug-dealer's furniture-less luxury apartment.

[High rates of infant mortality, a steady twenty-five-year rise in per capita cancer deaths, and no health insurance for forty million Americans, are all examples of addiction- caused dysfunction in a country with the most advanced medical technology in the world.]

[The Silent Depression of the Nineties. Two million are homeless, 22% of American children live in poverty, including 5 million who are hungry, 37 million lack any health insurance. America has fallen to 13th place in terms of workers' wages, benefits, health care, pensions, paid vacation days and educational opportunities. Twenty years ago it was first. Real wages have declined 20% since 1973. The standard of living for four out of five families went down in the Eighties. "As-needed" employees account for one third of all workers. Add the ten percent unemployed, and the result is that more than 40% of American workers are losing ground economically.]

[No Proof? In 1977, after nine years of research, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs advised Americans to eat less of the high-fat foods such as butter, meat, and eggs, and less sugar, salt, and to substitute nonfat milk for whole milk. There immediately followed compulsive lobbying by a co-addiction cluster of meat and dairy industrialists, sugar growers, and the medical profession. The American Medical Association said the Senate report was radical and potentially harmful, and that it could cause a disruption of the U.S. economy. The A.M.A. even went on to say that there is no proof that diet is related to disease. All this in the home of the world's leader in medical research. "We know more about what goes into a pair of socks than what goes into our food (Jonathan Aitken, Member of British Parliament, 1985)."]

[Transferred Addictions. Since the Senate's failed nutrition-awareness campaign, there has continued the chronic increase in per-capita consumption of caffeine, prescription drugs, and in the actual number of smokers. This in a country whose government spends billions on the medical consequences of these very substances. Take coffee, the delivery system for caffeine. "In the last five years the taste for...stronger coffee has been rolling east from the West. Virtually every New York restaurant, from the exalted to the expedient, now serves something called espresso, strong Italian-style coffee in small cups. While espresso is becoming more popular, a taste for stronger coffee made from beans that have been roasted longer, making them darker, has similarly taken hold. Even supermarket brands are trying to compete: canned and instant, dark and espresso roasts, regular and decaffeinated, fill the shelves. The decrease in in consumption of decaffeinated coffee, down to 18 percent, from 25 percent three years ago, may be another byproduct of this trend...(New York Times, Wed., 09/02/92, p. C1)."]

        Amazingly, in the health-conscious nineties, per capita high-fat food consumption is ON THE RISE (Appendix 7). There is no evidence of a national wave of temperance taking place, JUST transfer to legal drugs. This is unfortunate because they are so harmful. In addition, tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine command so much super-denial they aren't even called drugs.

[Class of '92. This is the first generation of Americans less educated than its parents. There has been a steady twenty-year decline in college-entrance examination scores. Apparently there is no educational trickle-down from self-proclaimed world-leading universities.]

[Compulsive Avoidance. In recent American elections the real majority is those who don't vote. The number of arrests each year for government corruption doubled in the eighties.]

[The Dream? There are many $60,000 per-year couples who can't afford to buy a home. At the same time, there is a steady increase in the percentage of the working population below the poverty level. As a crowning cap to the failure of trickle down, the number of Americans living in poverty doubled in just one year from 1987 to 1988.]

        America is becoming a luxury country without true comfort or quality of life.

        Compulsive governmental avoidance of industrial-pollution regulation virtually legalizes compulsive waste.

[1992 Rio Environmental Summit. U.S. cites jobs as reason for not signing a number agreements to reduce world pollution. The agreements were signed by more than a hundred countries.]

[Meanwhile back at the ranch, a group known as the Commission on Competitiveness, meets in secret sessions on a regular basis. It systematically removes, by fiat, many environmental regulations when ASCOs complain. There is no public hearing and no debate while it undermines hard-won environmental laws.]

[Power An Addictor? Research psychologist Philip Zimbardo takes twelve of his graduate students to live in a prison for a week. He randomly divides them into two groups, "prisoners" and "guards." Each group member is to act out his or her assigned role. The purpose of the experiment is to observe the effects of role and situation. Over a period of time, the guards become abusive to the prisoners. The experiment is stopped. http://www.prisonexp.org/]

[Codependence? Research psychologist Stanley Milgram's experiments on obedience to authority consisted of one person being ordered to electrically shock another person. The other person, in reality one of the experimenters, pretended to be injured with each shock. The shockers thought they were indeed harming the shockees but continued to obey orders, even at "fatal" levels. http://www.new-life.net/milgram.htm]

        Raising money by feeding on gambling addiction is but one more symptom of codependent government. State government addiction to public luck-bucks money cannot stop needing more and more.

[The Massachusetts Lottery Commission, a fast-growing bureaucracy, discovered the benefits of hidden inflation. One day, with no announcement, it dramatically changed the odds of its lotteries. The Megabucks went from thirty-six numbers to forty-two (new odds: 6 million to 1), and the "Mass Millions" went to forty-nine numbers (13 million to 1). This meant far fewer one, five, and ten-dollar spit-in-the-ocean prizes, and therefore more daily income for the government. This is a subtle form of inflation. But even this was not enough.
    Next came TV ads, "Betting By Phone!" Now, one could call a 900 number, place a bet from the couch, and then just sit there until the televised drawing. The phone call was yet another source of income for the Lottery--it is a 900 number. The cost of bet and call goes on the couch-potato gambler's phone bill.]

[Unguarded Stash. At times, other branches of state government tried to raid the lottery's unguarded wealth. The lottery came into being as a way to raise money for local towns, and over the years the money was kept separate from the State's general funds. One year however, the lottery profits were taken by the Governor to make up for a binge of compulsive spending that had plummeted the state into deep debt. This violated a law explicitly stating that lottery money was not to be diverted into the general fund.]

[Corner Store Casinos. Video-gambling systems are installed in South Dakota corner grocery stores and launder mats. A winning quarter bet pays off immediately. In some cases, bank-card machines (ATMs) are installed near the gambling machines. Many shoppers report becoming addicted. "I went to get a quart of milk, I came home with no money left in the bank (ABC-TV's 20/20 , Oct., 1992)."]

["Play It Again." Kaplan, op. cit., reported that, "nearly all of the lottery winners still buy tickets and hope to win again. Success has not dampened the winners' enthusiasm for the lottery. Most buy more tickets than before. Many extend their purchases to other states."]

[Drawing Crowds. In a special televised lottery drawing, the audience and contestants stand and applaud the bouncing-ball random-number generator in an almost religious manner. The excitement rises as each new number bounces out.]

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